Sunday, June 12, 2005

A Pair of Must-Reads on the Downing Street Memo

Michael Kinsley is a quite prominent liberal; he's also a good writer with a great sense of humor, and not a partisan hack ideologue in the mode of Frank Rich, Maureen Dowd, or Paul Krugman, so don't expect to see him in the New York Times editorial page. After revealing how the moonbat hordes are pounding him for his part in engaging in the 'Downing Street Memo' coverup, he actually took the time to read the memo, and here's his conclusion:

...Even on its face, the memo is not proof that Bush had decided on war. It states that war is "now seen as inevitable" by "Washington." That is, people other than Bush had concluded, based on observation, that he was determined to go to war. There is no claim of even fourth-hand knowledge that he had actually declared this intention. Even if "Washington" meant administration decision-makers, rather than the usual freelance chatterboxes, C was only saying that these people believed that war was how events would play out.

From the right, Tod Linberg tries to imitate the thought processes of the Bush haters who delude themselves into thinking he will be impeached:

There we have it in black and white: Bush lied about WMD and cooked the intelligence to support his position. At last, proof enough to start the impeachment proceedings.

Except, of course, that the folks peddling this story have long been convinced that Bush lied and cooked the intelligence. The question is: What have they got that will persuade someone who is not already a member of the ne plus ultra Bush-hating left?

The answer is nothing. In describing the leaked document in the terms above, I have been faithful to the way in which left-wing bloggers, activists, and assorted hangers-on have described its contents--which is to say, as inflammatorily as possible. But such a tendentious description comes at the expense of fidelity to what the document actually records.

As I said before, the Downing Street Memo is no cause of concern whatsoever. The reason the MSM hasn't made a bigger deal out of it is that there is no 'there' there (hat tip to RealClearPolitics for the links)...

UPDATE 12:11 p.m. central: AJ Strata has more on the subject, and as Kevin Drum points out, it's really a pair of Downing Street documents now...but Downing Street Memo has such a nice ring, doesn't it? Kind of like a victorian mystery: Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Downing Street Memo...